monday mornaftevening ughpdate.

1. man, my brain is fried, and it’s only monday. sometimes i feel like i live a lifetime in a week. anyone else?

2. i am listening to this old gem of a song: Keren Ann – Lay Your Head Down. it’s dreamy, and wistful, and (like with most new songs) i can listen to it on repeat all afternoon. and, excuse me, is that clapping AND a harmonica in a song? well, now. swoon.

3. my sister got into a car accident yesterday. she was in the passenger side of a car that got plowed into in a parking lot, on her side. mustang vs. expedition (the car she was in), and the mustang was going fast enough that it pushed the expedition 12 feet. yikes. she’s okay, but blacked out and has sprains, pains, and all sorts of whiplashy unpleasantness. since she hit her head, of course, she had to get scans at the hospital, which makes it the THIRD time my poor mom has been called about someone hitting their head and blacking out/going to the hospital all summer. that is not the the kind of trends you want in your life, i tell you.

4. i’m not a smoker. i’m not a drinker. i do not possess a penchant towards addictive behavior.

5. i’m telling you all this because there is just specific times of life (or on vacation😉 where one, or both, of these things just is FANTASTIC. thus, the emergency cigarettes that sporadically find themselves in my possession. and last night, driving in the car with some very, very good company, on a warm summer night after a long stressful week…

it was perfection.

hate me if you will, disapprove if you must, but the value of the schmokey treat and/or cocktail hour is not lost on me.

6. i finished the leftover bacon we had on sunday morning already. i couldn’t resist.

7. this is turning into a confession list. a select circle of friends of mine at one time faithfully chatted with each other in an undisclosed online location (doesn’t that sound spytastic?), often telling our secrets in rooms marked “confessions”. it was one of my favorite things, really.

so rare, which makes its value so high.

8. the downside to caring so much about what you are doing or where you are going (in my case, becoming a teacher), is that you are constantly reminded of how far you are from what you want to be. i have the great fortune to observe a variety of teachers, one of whom is really fantastic. i mean, REALLY REALLY REALLY. there are many teachers that i respect, but when you find one who matches so well with what you really want to be, it’s amazing.

and yet, simultaneously, discouraging because you think “how on earth will i ever get there?” and furthermore, is there any “there” there? and if you are made how you are, you will never really be someone else. foolish to try someone else’s personality on for size. so…how to navigate?

this is my daily conundrum. i live in a daily paradox, and let me tell you, it is exhausting.

9. the following things are charmingly good:

my tin lunchbox
my boy
my grey suede shoes
forging new friendships that just work
movie night with the harris’
finding old gift cards that haven’t been spent yet
my orange day planner

10. today was a MADHOUSE at school. what’s with all the kids everywhere? it’s not like it’s the first day of fall semester at the college, or anything. i have a class in the new science & engineering building (despite my class having nothing to do with engineering, or science), and i’m excited to see the inside of it.

11. as i pulled up to school, i could hear the sounds of the drum core practicing. i wonder if they’re going to do that every day, because that just makes it feel like a parade is happening in honor of my arrival, and who wouldn’t love that?

yes. and…yes. yes. i wish i had more clear things to say, but there’s only so much RAM in my head, and as bruno gianelli says, some things must be tossed overboard. today, it’s wit and clarity.